Another top emerging market fixed income trader has moved on

The head of central and eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEEMEA) fixed income trading at BNP Paribas has departed, in the latest of a series of senior emerging markets fixed income moves in London this year.

Simon Birch, a managing director and head of CEEMEA fixed income trading at the French bank, left earlier this month. His next move is not known, but it seems likely that another bank will be keen to snap him up. If you’re an emerging markets fixed income trader, 2017 is your year. As we’ve reported variously throughout this year, investment banks have been building their emerging markets fixed income trading desks and poaching from one another in this sector.

Birch joined BNP Paribas in June 2014, from Morgan Stanley where he was a managing director and emerging markets fixed income trader. He spent less than three years at Morgan Stanley, having joined in 2011 from J.P. Morgan, where he was also a managing director for close to five years.

In the past month, UBS has hired Ansar Ali, an emerging markets rates trader who spent seven years at Societe Generale, following on from its recruitment of Dmitry Khoroshavtsev, a former executive director at Goldman Sachs who officially arrived as head of emerging markets STIR trading for EMEA in September. Jonathan Harding also joined Standard Chartered as head of its emerging markets institutional rates sales division in October.

The emerging markets hiring spree has been ongoing throughout 2017. Credit Suisse, SocGen, Nomura, Goldman and Jefferies have been hiring in EM this year.

BNP Paribas reported its third quarter results this morning. Fixed income trading revenues were down by 26% year on year, to €801m, which dragged its markets business down by 17% on 2016.